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Jonson's Masque Markets and Problems of Literary Ownership
- SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 47, Number 2, Spring 2007
- pp. 451-471
- 10.1353/sel.2007.0020
- Article
- Additional Information
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In printing the texts of his courtly masques—in quarto volumes and then in his 1616 Folio—Jonson risked devaluing them within the patronage networks they were originally produced for. Nevertheless, Jonson used the stigmatized medium of print to increase the accessibility of his work, and to assert its value. This article explores that seeming paradox, arguing that Jonson defended the value of his printed masques by reasserting the very qualities that had previously enabled them as patronage "gifts." Even in the stigmatized marketplace of print, Jonson claimed his masques to be luxuries to be possessed only by discriminating consumers.